


Pull me back to the ground

by MissSanguineOus



Series: Founding mother, founding father [2]
Category: Belgariad/Malloreon Series - David & Leigh Eddings
Genre: F/M, Relg wants to help, but he also wants to run away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 12:22:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13857699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSanguineOus/pseuds/MissSanguineOus
Summary: Taiba has never seen the night sky either and now Relg is the one who explains it to her.





	Pull me back to the ground

The second night after they escaped from Rak Cthol, they were able to ride a little bit faster than the first night, since Taiba got more or less used to the saddle and Belgarath seemed to be doing fine as well. As soon as dusk fell, they were galloping to get as far away form Ctuchik's destroyed abode.

Around midnight, they slowed to a walk, letting the horses rest a little bit. They all knew it wasn’t enough for the tired animals, but it was all they could give them for now, or else they would never make it out of Cthol Murgos alive.

Taiba welcomed the change of the pace with relief. No sooner had she mounted a horse for the first time in her life, she was forced to travel in a crazy gallop. Durnik and Garion supported her for most of the way, but nonetheless, she still feared for her life – after all, she suddenly got a reason to value it, now that she got out of Rak Cthol and was, as she realised with a mild surprise,  _free_ .

For the first few minutes of the walk the Marag was too tired to lift up her head and just rode, staring at her horse’s mane. Luckily, the docile animal didn’t require much of her attention, obediently following the other horses.

When Taiba looked up, she regretted it momentarily.

Above her was nothing.

Letting go of the reins, she covered up her eyes and shivered, feeling as if the vast darkness above her could crash her any moment. She wasn't prepared for this. The previous night sky was greyish-blue and for some reason seemed more solid. Right now, above was darkness. Empty darkness, except for the tiny, glowing points in it.

_What's keeping us all from flying off the ground and falling into the dark void? And what's up there, anyway?_ Taiba felt uncomfortably exposed to anything that may come from above. It was like those dark, bottomless pits that they had in slave pens and used as garbage shuts – holes that could have reached to the center of the Earth itself.

The woman breathed deeply, trying to block out the awareness of absolute nothingness above her.

“You don’t have to fear it”

Taiba recognized the voice of the Ulgo, Relg. She glanced at him through her fingers, surprised that he spoke to her. Until now, her presence seemed to make him quite anxious, to put it lightly.

However now, he was riding next to her.

“What?” the woman asked.

“The sky” Relg pointed upwards “I too thought it was empty, but it actually isn’t. You’ll get used to it”

“To what?”

“Not having a ceiling above your head”

“How do you know?” Taiba put her hands down

“I did” Relg replied, shrugging “It took me a few days, but it got better. It’s less overwhelming when there are clouds”

“Clouds?” Taiba frowned

“They are those big volumes of fog, high above”

“Fog?”

“Oh, right”

Relg realised that this is what Garion must have felt like, explaining the sky to him. He tried to recall everything the boy told him a mere few weeks ago, as well as his own experiences, to describe the contents of the skies to the Marag.

“You know how, when you boil water, mist appears?” Relg asked

Taiba nodded.

“Well it sometimes flies high up and gathers and that’s what clouds are”

“What keeps them from falling down?” the Marag asked suspiciously.

“Sometimes they do” Relg nodded “And then water pours down from the sky. So I’ve heard”

Taiba’s eyes widened.

“But that’s an awful lot of water” she said “How does it now drown everything?”

“Well… I suppose…” Relg hesitated “Maybe it’s not that much of water. And the gods don't allow it to drown us”

And he kept talking to her about the earth and the sky and at some point, Taiba visibly relaxed and was now glancing upwards without fear, but with slight curiosity.

With anxiety, Relg noticed that he’s feeling some strange bond with the runaway slave, who has never been outside, just like him. In a rare moment of honesty, the Ulgo realized that he must have been even more frightened and helpless than her when he first left the caves. After all, he was leaving the safe, holy caves of Prolgu behind and ahead of him was a world he didn’t want to see. However, the Marag was riding towards a new, better life. Which, however, didn’t make the journey less frightening for her and for some reason, Relg felt somehow responsible for the woman, probably due to the fact that he was the only one who could understand how she felt. He remembered what Mandorallen said, how protecting the defenseless should be his duty. Maybe there was some merit to the knights words...

All thoughts of chivalry vanished from his head the very moment he noticed, to his dismay, that the woman has reduced the distance between their horses and they were now riding almost knee to knee. He forced his own horse to move away a little bit.

In how much danger he was he realized when, looking away from the woman’s face, he glanced down and saw that her dress, tucked up out of necessity that riding in a saddle generated, revealed a huge part of Taiba’s shapely leg. Relg shivered, feeling his cheeks getting hotter and hurried his horse to get out of the reach of the woman’s violet eyes and ample lips and curvy body, which couldn’t be obscured even by the simple, grey dress, borrowed from Polgara. Quite the opposite actually, because the sorceress was much thinner than the Marag so her dress was obscenely taut in some places and…

Relg shook his head, groaning silently. There it was again. He shouldn’t have even _noticed_ it. Why did the sin keep finding his way to his mind so easily? One might think that everything he’s done to serve UL would keep him safe or, at least, help him resist. So why, why did she pull him towards her like a magnet? Why did he feel the need to keep her in his sight when she was around and look for her when she wasn't?

Reluctantly, Relg assumed that it must be UL’s way of testing his commitment. The god wasn’t pleased with his actions so far. Relg has disappointed him, so now UL is sending his way both a punishment and a trial. And what a cruel trial it was…

Relg lowered his head and started praying, but Taiba’s face kept appearing in his mind and he heard her voice as she talked with Silk behind him and at some point he could no longer conjure up the words of the prayer, distracted by her voice behind him.

 


End file.
